Stefani Kuo

Hi there! My name is Stefani Kuo 郭佳怡, I’m a second-year MFA playwriting candidate at the School of Drama. I’m a poet/playwright/performer and native of Hong Kong and Taiwan. I received my B.A. from Yale as a Theater Studies major, and was a member of the Pierson community, class of 2017. I started writing plays at Yale and am interested in crafting multicultural, multilingual narratives for an international audience. I learned so much about myself as an artist during my time at Yale and would love to connect with anyone looking to do theater/the arts after school! Most of my work is an exploration of grief in its various forms. Between graduating from Yale College and returning for my MFA, I spent three years in New York, freelancing as a writer/performer.

My first play, Architecture of Rain, premiered at the Iseman Theater through the Yale Dramat. I have received commissions from the Rubin Museum, Roundhouse Theater Company, and Yangtze Repertory Theater Company. My play delicacy of a puffin heart was produced with the 2018 Corkscrew Theatre Festival and The Parsnip Ship. My play on the Hong Kong protests, Final Boarding Call was the winner of the 2021 Lead Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers’ Prize, a semi-finalist for Barrington Stage’ Company’s Burman New Play Award and the O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference. It was presented as a virtual reading co-produced by WP and Ma-Yi Theater Company in March 2021, and was workshopped as a part of the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival at Playwrights Foundation and the 2020 Irons in the Fire Series with Faultline Theater Company. The Conservation of Parity, my play on the work of Dr. Wu Chien-Shiung, the only Chinese woman to work on the Manhattan Project, was workshopped and co-presented by the Kitchen and Ma-Yi Theater Company in March 2021. It was a finalist for Egg and Spoon’s 2021 Incubation series, and semi-finalist for Local Lab Theater Company’s 2021 Developmental Series. Most recently, my play Little Stubby Wings, Like She Could’ve Glued Them On was presented as a reading with Bedlam Theater Company in October 2021. My commission play for Roundhouse Theater Company, TikTok (a period piece) will be produced in Washington, D.C. in Spring 2022. I was a member of Interstate-73, Page 73’s Writers Group, in 2019. I also write non-fiction, poetry, and translation.

Outside of the theater, I love hiking and most recently did a thru-hike of the Vermont Long Trail. I have also hiked El Camino de Santiago, the West Highland Way, the Tour Du Mont Blanc, and am hoping to do the Pacific Crest Trail one day soon! I practice Brazilian Jiujitsu and love being in nature! (For more about me: www.stefanikuo.com) (For more on Hong Kong: http://parachute.substack.com)